If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success. — James Cameron

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success.

Author: James Cameron

Insight: There's a strange math to ambition that most of us get wrong. We imagine that aiming low keeps us safe—that modest goals equal modest disappointments. But Cameron's point flips this: even when you spectacularly miss a huge target, you often end up somewhere remarkable. Missing by a mile when you're aiming for the moon still puts you in space. The real tension is that our culture rewards both humility and confidence in contradictory ways. We're told to be realistic about our limitations, yet the people we actually admire are usually those who tried something that seemed impossible. Your "failure" at something ambitious probably taught you more, got you further, and impressed more people than a success at something safe would have. That's not consolation—it's actually how growth works. The tricky part is distinguishing between ridiculously high goals and reckless ones. It's not about blind faith or ignoring real obstacles. It's about aiming at something that excites and terrifies you in equal measure, then accepting that the attempt itself—not just the outcome—might be the real victory. Most people never find out what they're capable of because they never aim high enough to fail interestingly.

Source: Man of Extremes. Interview with Dana Goodyear, www.newyorker.com. October 26, 2009